Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Have you ever experienced two contradicting feelings of enthusiasm
and anxiety simultaneously? Moving to a new country engenders a mishmash of
such disputing feelings. It generates a feeling of excitement and an
anticipation of a new beginning and opportunity to succeed. At the same time, a
feeling of apprehension flutters through you. It makes you worry whether you
will be able to adapt to a different culture, climate, food and survive in this
new environment. However, all these feelings and confusion are worth it and is ultimately a beautiful experience.

I was born in India but at the age of 16, I decided to
pursue a different platform of studies. This decision took me to Malaysia,
where I enrolled in British and Canadian courses that exposed me to Western
education system in a Southeast Asian country. This was a perfect amalgamation
to begin with. I had an amazing
opportunity to spend a few years of my life in Malaysia and Singapore, where I
had a taste of a completely different culture. While I explored the Western
system of education I also learned more about Malaysia as a country with its
unique multi-ethnic culture along with
the perks of living in a university town. Overall, this experience taught
me that studying in a different country and staying away from home exposes you
to an entirely new environment and helps you to grow as a person.

I have always been an explorer and my sense of adventure did
help me when I first landed in New York. I have lived in different countries,
however, those countries were not very far from home and the culture was fairly similar. So I was really nervous
to come to a Western country so far away.

At Hofstra I instead
quickly encountered multiple chances to meet new people. Everyone is so
warm and eager to help you grow that any uneasiness fades away very quickly.
There are so many clubs that you can join and numerous job opportunities and a variety
of events are organized that truly help you to expand the horizon of your social
network. The culture here is different when compared to an Asian country, but I
believe that I am fortunate to have this opportunity to meet people from
entirely different cultures and enhance my knowledge.

Studying in different countries definitely comes with its
own perks and I would personally advise students to come here with an open
mind, have a sense of adventure and try to make efforts to be more proactive
when exploring a city and its culture.